I just tried to buy BTS online.

[lymond]

^^^^this doesn't make any sense to me at all. For Civ V, Steam copy is the ONLY copy. CIV V is a Steam exclusive game, i.e., you are buying product keys if 3rd party. I'm not sure what the OTS disk copy provides you, but all you would do is enter your product key once and immediately download from Steam.

I don't understand the internet voucher stuff either, but guess that may be a country or location specific deal. However, it's a situation, although unfortunate for you, sounds extremely rare.

The problem is Civ V, not Steam.

(By the way, I bought my copy of V 3rd party and had no trouble with the Steam install)

 

[Old Hippy]

if you don't understand ...
Civ V, Fallout NV etc I brought the disc in a box from a shop and i installed them which took time, then it asks would i like to register them on steam (the box tells me i have to do this), but it then proceeds to a down load... as large as the game, before it completes the registration and lets you play and again aweek or so after release with the first patch

now the reason i buy boxed copies of games is because i work in remote locations and have limited and EXPENSIVE amounts of download per month on my connection

they are what they are ... it just makes steam come out of my ears, if its their game why oh why sell the disc in the first place and then make me download it TOO

you might find them great, but is it just possible many many people find them exasperating

 

[lymond]

That's my point, Steam is Steam. It's a download service with exclusive rights to Civ V (not owning it). Firaxis is the one who put out a disk copy for a game that is exclusive to a download service. I did not even realize they did that. I thought the box just contained the product key. That's all you would have needed. Just enter it in Steam and download it. Steam has nothing to do with the patches, other than providing an auto-update feature which you can actually disable.

I guess the lesson learned in this day and age is to know what you buy beforehand. PC gaming is becoming increasingly digital and I expect that to just increase. That's not Steam's fault, it is just the way it is and I personally like the digital age.

I don't necessarily find Steam great. I use it and other services, mainly to shop for best price. Ofc, some games are Steam exclusive like V (which sucks and I paid full price ) I find from tales of people who find it exasperating is that they are a) resistant to change b) just not understanding the process or the times

I actually feel a bit odd defending Steam, but most of the complaints I see about Steam are really a result of user error or user limitations

 

[Old Hippy]

Don't get me wrong, that is why i say they are what they are...

I too have brought cheap games on there, and i now have configured it to not auto patch etc. and it loads in offline mode ... unless i do restart when updating my OS where it goes on line and starts updating my account and will not let me play games off line till that is completed...

My point is mainly that they could be so much more friendly to some users(customers) if they tried.
their is that saying that go's something like "every happy Customer tell 2 others every UNHAPPY customer tells 10 others" seems to have missed their marketing department

that they are a) resistant to change b) just not understanding the process or the times

if this was really the case, why do you find Civ IV so fascinating, is it because some of the older ways of doing things, just don't need improving

 

[mintegar]

Civ V, Fallout NV etc I brought the disc in a box from a shop and i installed them which took time, then it asks would i like to register them on steam (the box tells me i have to do this), but it then proceeds to a down load... as large as the game, before it completes the registration and lets you play and again aweek or so after release with the first patch

In fact what you ran into here is a bug in Steam. It isn't supposed to be that way. Of course it isn't in Valve best interest either because they pay for bandwidth too.

By the number of posts about it it seems to be a pretty common problem.. Mind-boggling that Devs/Valve don't test such easy stuff beforehand.. but i guess Valve staff are always busy preparing cool holiday sales event and are not interested in such boring testing tasks.

fwiw my copy of civ5 installed most data from disk, like it's supposed to happen. I think the reason is i had Steam already running in the background, logged into my "subscription" when i inserted civ5 CD. This setup i think may have been what the dev/publisher QA was using for testing install.